Newbury needs a dressing down after turning to the Basil Fawlty School of Customer Relations

PR disaster: It's like something out of the Basil Fawlty School of Customer Relations (Image: PA)

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Another of racing’s major meetings borrows from the Basil Fawlty School of Customer Relations. When will we ever learn?

It seems like only yesterday that Ascot was embarrassing its ‘inappropriately dressed’ clientele by making them sit on the naughty step in orange stickers.

Now, at the start of its three-day Hennessy Heritage Festival, Newbury is at it – and the result is yet another PR embarrassment.

A few racegoers who attended Newbury on Thursday have got in touch with the Daily Mirror – and they are not happy at the way they were treated upon their arrival at the track.

First some background information. Newbury has published its new dress code for the Premier and Grandstand areas on its website.

It’s a complicated business, with various items of clothing listed and being given a tick or a cross – denoting whether they are allowed or not – for each sex and enclosure.

As I understand it, if a gentleman wears a shirt of a colour beginning with the letter ‘O’ during a month with a ‘B’ in it and on a date that is a prime number, he can walk unmolested into the Premier Enclosure.

The sticking point with many of those who took the trouble to contact me involved designer jeans.

According to Newbury’s website, ‘smart denim’ is a no-no for the Premier enclosure, so jeans wearers – including, one assumes, those already in possession of pre-ordered Premier Enclosure badges – were told they couldn’t come in, and directed to the Grandstand.

Others got to the races wearing the right trousers, along with coats and scarves to keep them warm during an afternoon’s winter sport.

A collared shirt is essential to gain admission to the Premier Enclosure, and patrons had to go through the indignity of ‘proving’ to door staff that they were wearing the correct clobber by unbuttoning their outer garments.

They did so, but in one case a man making his first-ever visit to Newbury has vowed that it will also be his last.

Quite why racecourses persist with this ‘you’re-luck-we-let-you-in’ mentality at a time when racing seeks to protect and expand its customer base is beyond me.

Newbury boss Stephen Higgins has admitted the fashion police were ‘over zealous’ – but the damage is done.

Jumps tracks would do well to use Cheltenham as a template. The home of National Hunt racing doesn’t have the sort of dress restrictions in place at the likes of Newbury and Ascot – it invites fans to come in and enjoy the sport.

Newbury’s top brass should also note of the fact that the gentlemen who terrified racegoers by having a mass brawl at the course in July of last year were wearing suits.

Newbury has recently undergone a rebranding, so that the track previously known as Newbury racecourse now presents itself as The Racecourse, Newbury.

It’s like Yoda from Star Wars got the contract for the PR makeover.

Now, like many others, I’m starting to wonder whether the home to such thrilling thoroughbred action is becoming all coat, fur.